WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski along with U.S. Representatives Steny H. Hoyer and Donna F. Edwards as well as Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker, III (all D-Md.) today applauded the inclusion of two proposed sites, Greenbelt and Landover, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) short-list of eligible sites to serve as the future home of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
“We applaud the inclusion of Greenbelt and Landover on the short-list of candidates for the new FBI headquarters because there is no better fit for the FBI than Prince George’s County,” Team Maryland said. “Every day, the men and women of the FBI fight to keep 300 million Americans safe from crime, organized crime, cyberattacks and terrorism. But they are operating out of a headquarters that is in disrepair. They need a new, modern headquarters to suit the FBI’s modern mission. The criteria for a new FBI headquarters are simple. First, it must fully consolidate staff in one campus. Second, it must meet all of the FBI’s security and functionality requirements. Third, it must be a good deal for taxpayers. Prince George’s County meets all of these criteria and exceeds them by offering close proximity to Washington, easy access to mass transit, world-class research and education institutions, cyber security and defense facilities, and other assets valuable to the FBI’s ongoing missions. This project would bring thousands of jobs to the County, boost our local economy and generate additional revenues for our community. As the GSA continues to move forward with the process of selecting a site, we will be working closely together to advocate for bringing this project, and the new economic opportunities that will accompany it, to Prince George’s County.”
The new FBI headquarters will be home to 11,000 jobs, and is estimated to be a $2 billion economic development project. According to a Maryland state report, approximately 40 percent of the FBI’s employees at the current headquarters already live in Maryland.
On March 24, 2014, Senators Mikulski and Cardin along with Representatives Hoyer and Edwards were joined by Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker, III, Governor Martin O’Malley, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, and other Maryland officials to promote Prince George’s County as the right choice for relocating the new, consolidated FBI headquarters.
In 2013, Senators Cardin and Mikulski along with the entire Maryland Congressional delegation, including Representatives Steny H. Hoyer, Elijah E. Cummings, Chris Van Hollen, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, John P. Sarbanes, Donna F. Edwards, Andy Harris and John Delaney, sent a letter to the heads of the FBI and GSA that strongly supports Prince George’s County for the future home of the FBI. A copy of that letter is available here.
In 2011, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved a resolution which provided the GSA with official guidance on the framework for the project. Drafted to reflect the FBI’s needs and priorities, the Senate resolution outlined requirements for proximity to the Metro System and Washington Beltway, minimum acreage for the site, and a financing strategy which directed GSA to enter into a private sector lease with a private firm to build a 2.1 million square foot, secure facility on federally owned land that would be leased to the FBI and ownership of which would revert to the Federal government at the end of the lease at no additional cost.
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